Vehicular traffic claims many victims every year. A large number of these accidents occur when driving in the dark and under bad weather conditions. Modern vehicles, such as for example cars, trucks and busses, are sometimes equipped with electronic systems which are adapted to support the driver when driving under unfavorable weather conditions. Some of these electronic systems are, for example, configured to adaptively direct or turn the headlights of the vehicle while taking a curve. Other systems are configured in such a manner that a display mounted in the vehicle shows objects that are considered to be important in driving the vehicle.
Systems of the latter type which show important objects on a display mounted in the vehicle suffer from a serious drawback since they force the driver to divert his attention from the road, which results in the driver being distracted and makes driving tiring. Moreover, the creation of a virtual image of the road on a display mounted in the vehicle makes the driver tend to rely on the image shown on the display, and not on the actual circumstances.
US 2004/0066376 aims at solving this problem by mounting a projector in the vehicle to project an amplified image of the road in front of the vehicle on the windshield of the vehicle. This system is both complicated and expensive and is not suitable for the current vehicle industry where cost is a crucial aspect.
US 2004/025216 has a different approach to solve the above problems. The system disclosed in this patent application aims to detecting an individual in a road scenery and illuminate this road scenery by a vehicle headlight, illumination occurring through an image mask. As a result, the detected individual will not be dazzled by the vehicle headlight while at the same time the road scenery around the individual will be illuminated.
However, the use of this system results, in the same way as mentioned above, in the attention of the driver of the vehicle being diverted from the road in order to locate the illuminated portions around the detected individual.